


Contemptress

by CaliBDiamond



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3205259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaliBDiamond/pseuds/CaliBDiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for a drabble prompt on Tumblr for ScratchTheMaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contemptress

There’s something about waking up on the cold hard surface of one of Tony’s workbenches that makes Syriana’s heart clench. How many times have they done this now? They just can’t seem to have a simple night as _friends_ anymore. It either ends with one of them screaming out their lungs and storming out of the room, or getting so drunk that _this_ happens. It’s a predictable pattern that they seem almost blind to; everyone else around them can see it, but they can’t.

Her head swims as she sits up too fast, grasping the edge of the table in an effort to keep herself from toppling over the side of it. There’s an arm draped over her hips. The possessive press of fingers is going to leave marks later, but she’s too sick to do anything about it. The familiar hum and whirr of computers and bots would be comforting if she wasn’t so busy worrying about how she was going to get out before he wakes up.

Swallowing the urge to be sick, she can’t bring herself to look back at him. That’s usually when she makes the first mistake. Just looking at him as he sleeps there beside her with a peaceful expression on his always-tired face— _God_ , it does things to her. Like she knows she’s his solution to a three week binge of sleepless nights and endless glasses of scotch. Why can’t he take handfuls of Xanax bars like everyone else? Why does he have to come to her when he’s barely holding on by a shred of dignity and turn her into a melting puddle for the sheer benefit of getting sleep?

There’s no love in this situation between them. At least, that’s how it feels. It’s empty sex and fights that last for months. It’s bruised lips and scratched hips and rug-burned knees. It’s degrading words and acid laced insults and the kind of high volume swearing that leaves the throat raw and the eyes sore from crying. It’s everything unhealthy and unsafe—but it’s so _fucking_ addicting that neither of them can get enough of it. They’re like heroin addicts that crave each other for the next deadly hit of something that might very well be the end of them one day. If there’s any love in their hearts, it isn’t the good kind.

A shrill beeping from across the room has her putting her head in her hands, pressing the heels into her eyes as she grits her teeth against a pain like no other. The body behind her stirs and that possessive hand clamps down briefly on the flesh trapped beneath it. Then there’s a heavy, muscular heat pressed against her back and warm lips on her shoulder. The rumbling against her spine suggests he’s speaking, but he seems to forget that she’s unable to hear him in that ear. Her hearing aid is _somewhere_ among the mess of clothes and jewelry that was ripped off the night before, but she hardly has the energy to fight off his affections let alone find the tiny piece of tech.

It’s the cold press of metal against her skin that makes her jump and finally find the nerve to pull out of his grasp. Sliding to the edge of the table, she lowers her feet to the floor. It takes a few deep breaths before she can clear her head enough to start moving around to find her clothes. When she turns in a way that points her good ear to him, she just barely catches the end of whatever he’d been saying to her.

“…you always have to do this.”

“I’m sorry?” she snatches up her dress and pulls it on over her head. Her hearing aid sits on a table next to one of her earrings. Lord only knows what happened to the other one. Picking up the device, she turns it on and starts to put it back in, barely sparing him a glance.

“I asked why you always have to do this.”

“Isn’t this how it works?” There’s no telling where her panties went last night. Oh well; just another pair he can add to the collection he’s keeping. “We get fucked up, make mistakes and regret them in the morning?”

“You never used to be so cold about it.”

“Well, when you make the same mistake more than a hundred times, you start hating yourself for it Tony.” Her feet find the shoes she’d discarded and she pushes the one earring into the hole in her lobe. “You know that better than anyone else.”

“So it’s still a mistake? This arrangement we have is still just a horrible _mistake_ to you?”

She’s reaching for her purse when she pauses long enough to actually turn and get a good look at him. And God, she wishes she hadn’t. Aside from his worn, disheveled appearance, he actually looks _hurt_. Those big brown eyes of his remind her of the way hers used to look whenever he’d creep into her apartment on late nights and then leave before Pepper could figure out he was even missing. He spent three years pulling her around, promising her things and never delivering them. Even after they’d tried to commit to one another, Syri always found herself being jerked this way and that. She was tired of it. Giving him a taste of his own medicine now was almost a bittersweet accomplishment.

Clicking her tongue, she drops her gaze and blows out a heavy breath. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she starts for the door. “Go back to sleep, Tony. God knows you need it more than I do.”

Then she’s gone. And she feels like the world’s biggest bitch for just walking out like that, but the spoiled motherfucker in the workshop needs to learn that he can’t always get what he wants and keep it on a string to yank back whenever he needs it. That’s just not how things work.


End file.
